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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 10
June 2005
ME DMR floats lobster effort reduction draft
AUGUSTA, ME - No one ever thought it was going to be easy to reach consensus on how to reduce effort in the Maine lobster fishery.
Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner George Lapointe first started talking about effort reduction at a Lobster Advisory Council meeting in September of 2004. He said then that the discussions to come would be incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, “but that shouldn’t stop us from talking.”
After well-attended meetings in each lobster zone as well as industry-wide since then, there has been some agreement on a handful of possible measures and differences of opinion on many, many others.
Lapointe opened the effort reduction discussion at the lobster council meeting on May 18 by saying it was important to keep the dialogue going. But with so much information, it was hard to make progress toward reaching a goal of having an effort reduction plan ready to be introduced in the Legislature’s second session in January 2006.
He said there was agreement between industry and DMR on several principles that should form the basis of any effort reduction plan. These include:
• The effort reduction plan must be carefully constructed to not simply redistribute effort, or lower the potential number of traps in the water, but to actually remove existing gear from the water.
• The effort reduction plan should impact all licenses holders fairly. In the near-term, the plan should avoid impacting license holders that have built down to 800 traps from a higher number. However, long-term discussions of effort may also need to impact those license holders, as that group alone has the potential to hold approximately 1 million trap tags.
• Transferability, either of licenses or tags, should be avoided because of the negative impacts it is likely to have on the traditional structure of Maine’s lobster industry and coastal communities. The lobster resource is a public resource, and it should not be privatized into the hands of license holders.
• To the degree possible, effort reduction measures should be tailored to the specific conditions of each lobster zone. And,
• Effort reduction through trap limits and license issues will address mainly economic (overcapitalization) and social (gear conflict) problems in the fishery. Any biological problems identified in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission stock assessment may require further conservation equivalencies.
Draft proposal
As a starting place, Lapointe said the department proposed using a 30 percent reduction from 1997 license and tag numbers as the goal for the effort reduction. Current regulation states that once a 30 percent reduction in licenses from 1997 levels is achieved in a zone, its entry/exit ratio goes to 1:1.
Lapointe said the DMR currently sells about 3 million tags a year. It estimates that 60-66 percent of those, or about 1.8 million, are actually traps in the water.
The DMR put together a draft proposal that makes changes to the current lobster licensing system, including student, Class I, II, and III, and apprentice licenses.
“This is a draft to narrow the focus and start significant discussions,” Lapointe said. “We think these need fleshing out. We hope we get feedback.”
He said again, as he has at previous sessions, the DMR will go forward only with support from industry.
“We make changes with the consent of the governed,” Lapointe said.
The council raised several additional points.
Several members said the amount of reduction needed is not the same from the eastern to the western parts of the coast. They pointed to differences from zone to zone.
Council chairperson Larry Knapp suggested allowing zones to try out proposals on a small scale.
Zone C member Danny MacDonald said that before deciding anything, reduction and effort need to be defined and there has to be a way to measure the impact of each change.
In the end, the council voted on each of the points in the DMR’s effort reduction proposal, which follows below.
Student license
Currently, students going to a commercial license are not counted when figuring out how many new licenses will be allowed into zones with an exit/entry ratio (all zones except C). The eight lobster council members at the May 18 meeting supported each of the points:
• Maintain availability of student license to individuals from ages 8-22 who are full time students.
• Lower the number of traps that are allowed under a student license (down from 150).
• When calculating the yearly entry for a zone, first deduct the number of individuals who transitioned from a student license to a commercial license, before calculating new entrants.
For example, if 16 people did not renew their licenses, and 8 students completed the apprentice program and transitioned to a commercial license, the calculation for new entrants would be first 16-8 = 8, and then the zone ratio applied to the remaining 8 slots. If the ratio was 2:1, 4 apprentices would be allowed in off of the waiting list.
• Make 18 the minimum age to be issued a Class I, II, or III license, and require high school graduation or GED as eligibility criteria.
• Must complete new requirements proposed under changes to Apprentice Program.
Class I, II, III licenses
The lobster council split 4-4 on the proposal.
• Trap limit for existing license holders will remain at 800 tags (600 for Zone E; 600 for Monhegan; 475 for Swans Island). New entrants (those obtaining Class I, II or III licenses after some future date) will be subject to a slower buildup (something less than 100) to a maximum of 500-600 tags.
All licenses
The council favored the proposed change. Many felt that under the current method of issuing the replacement tags upfront, those tags ended up on traps that were fished. Some lobstermen could have 880 traps out rather than the 800 limit in most zones.
• Eliminate 10 percent replacement tag policy.
Commissioner Lapointe said the DMR can do this with a regulatory change. First, though, DMR has to develop a statewide policy for the local distribution of replacement tags.
Apprentice program
The council supported the change.
• Expand current apprentice program to require safety, education, and competency components.
Other items
There will be further research and discussion of the following:
• Mandatory logbooks (to better monitor the health and value of the lobster resource and fishery).
The council unanimously opposed logbooks.
• Tiered licenses. (Divide based on full-time/part-time, or percentage of income derived from fishing, or some other distinction. Mechanism must exist to move from one license category to the other.)
The council vote was split, 5-3.
• Revise entry into lobster fishery so that ratio addresses tags, rather than licenses. No vote.
• Moratorium on licenses and tags.
The council vote was split, 4-4. Zones D and G have both voted in favor of a temporary license and tag freeze, during which an effort reduction plan could be figured out. A 2-year sunset was suggested.
But council members from Zones A and C opposed a moratorium because of the impact it would have on their communities, and they worried that it would be extended beyond any sunset provision.
• Overall cap on licenses and tags. No vote.
Based on the comments from industry and the Lobster Advisory Council, the DMR intends to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed lobster license system changes. It will report back to the council in the fall with a more refined proposal, which could be readied for possible submission to the Legislature.
The analysis will include the expected amount of effort reduction as a result of these actions, and the amount of time it would take to occur.
For more information contact the Lobster Advisory Council member in your zone or DMR’s Terry Stockwell at (207) 633-9556.
Susan Jones
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